Various lace-binding systems (i.e., shoelace-binding systems) are in use for securing shoes to feet. All typical lace-binding systems require a wearer who is experiencing a need to adjust the level of shoe snugness to untie ends of the lace (i.e., the shoelace), loosen or tighten the lace, and then retie ends of the lace in order to adjust the level of shoe snugness. In other words, typical lace-binding systems are not homeostatic with regard to maintaining a comfortable level of shoe snugness. Instead, the capacity to adjust shoe snugness via the typical lace-binding system is absent unless ends of a lace of the lace-binding system are untied, the lace is loosened or tightened, and the ends are then retied at the desired level of shoe snugness. Unfortunately, the wearer of a shoe having a typical lace-binding system may have a need to adjust the level of shoe snugness several times during the course of a day in order to set snugness at a comfortable level. Consequently, in order to meet these needs, the wearer of a shoe having a typical lace-binding system may be required to go through the tedious exercise of untying and retying lace ends several times during the course of a day.
Discomfort in shoe snugness for a shoe secured with a typical lace-binding system is often related to inflexibility in the path length of the tied lace. For example, if a shoe wearer ties the lace ends of a typical lace-binding system so that the lace is at a snug tension (e.g., as is done by some wearers having only largely stationary activity in mind), constancy in the path length of the lace of the lace-binding system can mean that the snug tension may later become a very pressing tension (e.g., when the wearer attempts to engage in a brisk walk). In fact, the tension of lace in the lace-binding system may become a source of great discomfort as the wearer's foot swells during the course of a later brisk walk, possibly causing injury to the dorsal metatarsal phalangeal joints of the foot.
Depending on the activity of the shoe wearer, accommodation for constancy in the path length of lace in a lace-binding system may be required in order to maintain a comfortable level of shoe snugness. Nonetheless, in a typical lace-binding system, the capacity for accommodating constancy in the path length of tied lace is limited. Once the lace ends that pass through the uppermost eyelets are tied, the path length of the tied lace is set.
Not only may the maintenance of a comfortable level of shoe snugness be tedious, and not only may the capacity to accommodate constancy in the path length of lace be limited, other aspects of typical lace-binding systems have negative aesthetic consequences. These negative aesthetic consequences derive from the fact that, except for lace, components of a typical lace-binding system are not readily replaceable. While replacing a lace of one color (e.g., red) for a lace of another color (e.g., blue) may contribute to switching from one shoe color pattern to another, attempting to replace non-lace components (e.g., vamp sections) of a typical lace-binding system after manufacture of shoes is generally futile.